Humanoids from the Deep
Humanoids from the Deep (also known as "Monster" in Europe & Japan) is a 1980 American science fiction horror movie which was directed by Barbara Peeters & Jimmy T. Murakami (who is listed as uncredited). The movie was released on May 16, 1980 by New World Pictures. Plot Anglers from the fishing village of Noyo, California catch what appears to be a monster. The young son of one of the anglers falls into the water and something unseen drags him under the surface. Another angler prepares a flare gun, but he slips and accidentally fires it into the deck, which is soaked with gasoline dropped earlier by the boy. The vessel bursts into flames and explodes; everybody aboard is killed. Jim Hill and his wife Carol witness the explosion. Later, Jim and Carol's dog goes missing and they finds the dog's dismembered corpse on the nearby beach. The following day, teenagers Jerry Potter and Peggy Larson go for a swim at the beach. Jerry is abruptly pulled under the water. Peggy believes it is a prank until she discovers his mutilated corpse. Peggy screams and tries to reach the beach, but a monstrous figure attacks her and drags onto the sand. The humanoid creature tears off her swimsuit and rapes her. That night, two more teenagers are camping on the same beach; Billy is about to have sex with his girlfriend, Becky when another humanoid monster claws its way inside, kills Billy and chases Becky onto the beach. Becky outruns the monster, but she runs into the arms of yet another monster, which throws her to the sand and rapes her. More attacks follow; not all of them successful, but few witnesses survive to tell the public about the incidents; only Peggy is found alive, but she is severely traumatized from the attack. Jim's brother is also attacked, prompting Jim to take a personal interest in the matter. A company called Canco has announced plans to build a huge cannery near Noyo. The murderous, sex-hungry mutations are apparently the result of Canco's experiments with a growth hormone they had earlier administered to salmon. The salmon that escaped from Canco's laboratory into the ocean during a storm and were eaten by large fish that then mutated into the brutal, depraved humanoids that have begun to terrorize the village. By the time that Jim and Canco scientist Dr. Susan Drake (Turkel) have deduced what is occurring, the village's annual festival has begun. At the festival, many humanoids appear, murdering the men and raping every woman they can grab. Jim devises a plan to stop the humanoids by pumping gasoline into the bay and setting it on fire, cutting off the humanoids' way of retreat. Meanwhile, Carol is attacked at home by two of the creatures, but she manages to kill them before Jim arrives. The morning after the festival, all seems normal. Jim asks the sheriff about Dr. Drake and the sheriff says that she went back to the lab, where she is coaching a pregnant Peggy, who has survived her sexual assault. Peggy is about to give birth when her monstrous baby bursts from her womb, with Peggy screaming at the screeching baby. Cast *Doug McClure as Jim Hill *Ann Turkel as Dr. Susan Drake *Vic Morrow as Hank Slattery *Cindy Weintraub as Carol Hill *Anthony Pena as Johnny Eagle *Denise Galik as Linda Beale *Lynn Schiller as Peggy Larson *Meegan King as Jack Potter *Breck Costin as Tommy Hill *Hoke Howell as Deke Jensen *Don Maxwell as Dickie Moore *David Strassman as Billy *Lisa Glaser as Becky Production "Humanoids from the Deep" was originally offered to Joe Dante, who turned it down. Peeters accepted the film, and shooting commenced in October of 1979. Executive producer Corman said that Peeters' version of the film lacked the required exploitative elements needed to satisfy its intended audience. In an interview included on the 2010 Blu-ray release of the film by Shout! Factory, Corman stated he and Peeters had discussed his expectations of the film regarding B-movie exploitation; this being to fulfill Corman's maxim that monsters "kill all the men and rape all the women." In post-production, Corman said Peeters had done an outstanding job in filming the death scenes involving male characters, but all of the rape scenes had been left "shadowy" or used cutaways before the attacks occurred. Portions of the film were directed by an uncredited Murakami, who directed the Corman-produced sci-fi cult classic "Battle Beyond the Stars" the same year. The film's budget was $2.5 million. The monster costumes were designed and created by Rob Bottin. Second unit director James Sbardellati (who later directed "Deathstalker") was hired to enliven the film; he filmed the explicit scenes in which the humanoids rape women. These changes were not communicated to most of the people who had made the film with the working title "Beneath the Darkness"; several of them expressed shock and anger at the released film, its changed title, and the nudity and sexual exploitation. After Peeters and Turkel saw the additional sequences, they asked for their names to be removed from the film, but they were refused. Turkel appeared on television talk shows and castigated Corman for his actions. Reception "Humanoids from the Deep" received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 56% based on nine reviews with an average rating of 5.2 out of 10. Leonard Maltin gave the film 3 out of a possible 4 stars, calling it "fast, occasionally hilarious gutter trash from the Roger Corman stable." Jon Niccum of the Lawrence Journal-World called it "an unintentionally hilarious fusing of mutated salmon and full frontal nudity." Paul Taylor of Time Out said in his review: "Despite the sex of the director, a more blatant endorsement of exploitation cinema's current anti-women slant would be hard to find; Peeters also lies on the gore pretty thick amid the usual visceral drive-in hooks and rip-offs from genre hits; and with the humor of an offering like Piranha entirely absent, this turns out to be a nasty piece of work all round." Category:1980s films Category:American films Category:Horror films Category:Science-fiction films Category:New World Pictures films Category:Films Category:R-rated films